Advice is offensive, not because it lays us open to unexpected regret, or convicts us of any fault which had escaped our notice, but because it shows us that we are known to others as well as to ourselves; and the officious monitor is persecuted with hatred, not because his accusation is false, but because he assumes that superiority which we are not willing to grant him, and has dared to detect what we desired to conceal.

To prevent evil is the great end of government, the end for which vigilance and severity are properly employed.

Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has repressed. It only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

When any calamity is suffered, the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.

Whatever you have spend less.

Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.

A man who always talks for fame never can be pleasing. The man who talks to unburthen his mind is the man to delight you.